Hurricane Sandy May Push Record Storm Surge Into Manhattan

People stand on the beach watching the heavy surf caused by the approaching Hurricane Sandy, in Cape May, New Jersey on October 28, 2012. Sandy is expected to hook into the U.S. East Coast in southern New Jersey early Oct. 30. Photographer: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Sandy may push a life-threatening wall of water onto the Northeastern U.S., setting a
record storm surge in Manhattan while whipping the region with
high winds and rain.

The expected surge at New York’s Battery Park will be 11.7
feet (3.5 meters) at 8:30 p.m. tomorrow, more than 2 feet higher
than the water Hurricane Irene sent onto the shore last year and
higher than the 10.02-foot record set September 1960 by
Hurricane Donna, said Sean Potter, a National Weather Service
spokesman in Upton, New York.

“That is assuming that it does occur with the high tide,”
Potter said by telephone.

Irene caused flooding in the Battery, at the southern tip
of Manhattan, when it struck in August 2011. Normal high tides
generally just top 5 feet, according to data from the U.S.
Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service. Flood stage is 6.7 feet.

“It couldn’t be a worse scenario with the storm coming
around with a full moon,” said Mark Hoekzema, chief
meteorologist at Earth Networks in Germantown, Maryland. “The
full moon with the high tides are going to add another 1 to 2
feet and then there is wave action on top of that.”

The system may also leave 3 feet of snow in the
Appalachians, the weather service said.

Storm’s Spread

Sandy’s punch may be felt from Virginia to Massachusetts,
said Rick Knabb, director of the National Hurricane Center. High
wind warnings and watches for gusts as strong as 70 miles (113
kilometers) per hour stretch from Maine to North Carolina and as
far west as Ohio, according to the weather service. Flood
watches and warnings cover most of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic coasts.

Hurricane force winds of at least 74 mph are expected from
Chincoteague, Virginia, to Chatham, Massachusetts, said the
hurricane center in Miami.

Heavy rain and high winds are also expected across southern
Ontario and Quebec, according to Environment Canada.

Sandy’s maximum sustained winds were steady at 75 miles per
hour as of 8 p.m. New York time, the hurricane center said in an
advisory. It was centered about 280 miles east-southeast of Cape
Hatteras, North Carolina, and about 485 miles south-southeast of
New York, moving northeast at 15 mph.

The storm has already killed at least 65 people throughout
the Caribbean, according to the Associated Press.

Waves as high as 32.5 feet were reported from buoys off
Cape Hatteras, according to the National Data Buoy Center at
Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

Near-Record Size

Hurricane-strength winds of at least 74 mph extend 175 from
Sandy’s core and tropical storm force reach 520 miles, according
to the hurricane center. The storm is the second-largest in size
since 1988, tied with Hurricane Lili in 1996, according to
Angela Fritz at Weather Underground in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The
largest was Hurricane Olga in 2001.

Sandy is expected to hook into the U.S. East Coast in
southern New Jersey early Oct. 30. It will start the turn toward
land late today or early tomorrow, the hurricane center said.

Sandy is taking its unusual track into the East Coast
because a number of weather systems have come together in just
the right way, Louis Uccellini, director of the National Centers
for Environmental Prediction, said last week.

‘Frankenstorm’ Pattern

To Sandy’s east, a phenomenon called the North Atlantic
Oscillation is acting like a closed door, barring the storm from
moving in that direction. To the west, a cold front and another
storm are creating a pattern that will pull Sandy toward them as
it evolves into the superstorm some in the Weather Service have
dubbed “Frankenstorm.”

The hurricane center predicts as much as 3 feet of snow may
fall in West Virginia and as much as 2 feet in the mountains of
Virginia to Kentucky. As much as 12 to 18 inches may fall in the
Appalachians in North Carolina and Tennessee.

The hurricane center’s five-day outlook shows the system
turning north over Pennsylvania at tropical-storm strength
before weakening as it crosses into New York State, over Lake
Ontario and into Canada.

As it passes, temperatures will drop in interior parts of
West Virginia and the Appalachians to around 20 degrees
Fahrenheit (minus 7 Celsius) and in the 30s and 40s throughout
much of the rest of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states, which
could lead to problems for people without power, Knabb said.